The Invisible Fight (2023)
Director: Rainer Sarnet Run Time: 115 min. Release Year: 2023
Starring: Ester Kuntu, Indrek Sammul, Kaarel Pogga, Sepa Tom, Ursel Tilk
Country: Estonia, Greece, Finland, Latvia
Language: Estonian with English subtitles
About the film:
Official Selection, 2023 Sitges Film Festival
Official Selection, 2023 Locarno Film Festival
USSR-China border, 1973: Young soldier Rafael is on guard duty when the border falls under attack from flying Chinese kung fu warriors, leaving him as the sole survivor. Utterly fascinated by the long-haired martial artists who easily dispatched his fellow guards, all while blasting forbidden Black Sabbath music from their portable radio, Rafael is struck by a revelation: he too wants to become a kung fu warrior.
“An entertaining universe to be observed and relished…Estonian helmer Rainer Sarnet deploys an explosive mix of kung fu, heavy metal, and Orthodox Christianity.“
—Mariana Hristova, Cineuropa
Looking for mentorship but with limited options, faith leads Rafael to seek martial arts teachers at the most unlikely of places: the local Eastern Orthodox monastery, where the black-clad monks begin his training. With a skeptical mother, a rival monk, and a budding love interest pulling him in different directions, Rafael finds that his journey to unlock the greatest martial art of all – the almighty power of humility – is long, winding, and full of kick-ass adventures.
About the filmmaker:
“Art is a poetic way to describe human psychology”
—Rainer Sarnet, Director
Rainer Sarnet is an Estonian film director who mainly writes his own scripts, often based on literature. Passionate about filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Orthodox mysticism, Sarnet has also directed stage plays based on texts by Przybyszewski, Gorky, and Jelinek, among others. The Invisible Fight (2023) is his third feature film with Homeless Bob Production, after his screen adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot (2011) and surreal folk horror November (2017), which was selected as the Estonian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards.
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